TV still maintains its dominant position with a 76 percent market share and 18 percent growth in 2006. The growth of outdoor ads slowed to 9 percent from the previous year's 130 percent. Newspaper and magazine ads saw growth of 4 and 10 percent.

According to TNS Media Intelligence, China, together with the United Kingdom, is now the world's third advertising market after the United States and Japan, and it is the No 1 market in terms of growth of advertising expenditure. US advertising spending grew by 3.8 percent year-on-year, while Japan and the UK saw negative growth of -0.2 and -1.8 percent in 2006.

But CTR said there was still room for China's advertising market to develop, as the ratio of advertising spending to China's gross domestic product is 1.4 percent lower than that of the US at 3 percent.

CTR also expected the 2008 Beijing Olympics to propel advertising spending growth until 2009.

"The prediction is not unreasonable, and it is based on the good performance during the World Cup and the Doha Asian Games," said Tian.

According to the CTR report, 2006 World Cup advertising on the three appointed CCTV channels from June 10 to July 10 saw spending increase by 36 percent compared with the same period the previous year.

CCTV and provincial capital city TV channels outperformed average TV media in the growth of advertising spending.

"As the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaches, sport events have become more and more popular among advertisers," said Tian.

CTR also said advertisers would turn to a mix of traditional and new media to lure the attention of China's consumers.

"New and innovative advertising strategies leveraging various media will be an important new advertising trend in China in the years ahead," said Tian. 

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